MATTHEWS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT – JOINT DISSENTING OPINION 25 OF JUDGES Sir John FREELAND AND JUNGWIERT 8. If it had become necessary to consider whether, on the hypothesis that it was in the true sense a legislature, the European Parliament qualified to be treated as “the legislature” for Gibraltar within the meaning of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, so that Gibraltar elections were required to be held to it as well as to the local House of Assembly, we would have been influenced in the contrary direction by the exclusion of Gibraltar from substantial parts of the EC Treaty and the limited extent of the areas of Community competence in which the Parliament has, in any event, a significant role (as it does not in the areas of foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs, the implementation of the common commercial policy or the negotiation of trade agreements with other States or international organisations; or in the field of economic and monetary union). We would have been similarly influenced by the small number of measures adopted under the Article 189b procedure and applicable to Gibraltar. But, given the negative view which we have reached on the qualifications of the European Parliament to be regarded as a legislature, there is no need for us to proceed to a conclusion on the further question. 9. We would add only that, to put it no higher, we see a certain incongruity in the branding of the United Kingdom as a violator of obligations under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 when the exclusion from the franchise effected multilaterally by the 1976 Decision and Act – in particular, Annex II – was at that time wholly consistent with those obligations (because on no view could the Assembly, as it was then known, be regarded as a legislature); when at no subsequent time has it been possible for the United Kingdom unilaterally to secure the modification of the position so as to include Gibraltar within the franchise; and when such a modification would require the agreement of all the member States (including a member State in dispute with the United Kingdom about sovereignty over Gibraltar).